“I just feel like we’re cheating ourselves by not pursuing any and all opportunities,” Councilman Gary Price said.
Price drew nods of approval from the city council last week when he showed council members an architect’s drawing of how a “small-wind” turbine, 6 feet tall and almost 4 feet wide, would fit on a home’s roof.
“It’s like putting a hydroelectric dam on a river bank as opposed to in the river,” American Wind Energy Association “small-wind” advocate Ron Stimmel said.
A windy day at the beach might feel that way because the air is blowing every which way, not the sort of steady force a wind turbine needs, Stimmel said.
“It will just kind of shake it around,” Stimmel said.
Putting the turbines up in the air, though, risks ruining the character of Naples’ neighborhoods, Price said.
“That’s the discussion we need to have,” Price said last week.
At present, the city’s building codes allow only chimneys, elevator shafts, stair towers, rooftop heating and cooling equipment and architectural embellishments to extend 5 feet above the maximum allowed building height for single-family homes and 7 feet above the maximum heights allowed in other zoning districts.
Most of the code was written before most people thought about wind turbines as anything other than a quaint part of a Dutch landscape.
In 2008, about 10,000 wind turbines were sold in the US, only 1% of them the rooftop variety, according to the wind energy trade group.
Price said that the wind energy industry was poised for a 30-fold growth rate over the next five years, helped in part by US President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus program. That $787 billion plan includes a 30% tax investment credit for consumers who install wind turbines.
A wind turbine big enough to power an average American home can cost as much as $60,000, Stimmel said.
For some consumers, the payoff extends beyond smaller energy bills to the notion of being part of a green energy revolution, Stimmel said.
“It’s pretty powerful,” Stimmel said.
Price said he has got plenty of positive feedback since he first started talking about the wind turbine idea in 2008.
“It’s pretty encouraging,” Price said.
Will it work? Price says he’s not sure yet.
“If it doesn’t work, at least we tried,” Price said.
